


young blood, stand and deliver

by thatsparrow



Series: beau week 2019 [3]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, Gen, Internalized Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-31 06:04:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18585307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsparrow/pseuds/thatsparrow
Summary: "An R.A. is basically like a glorified counselor, right?""I don't know how glorified it is, but, sure, counseling is generally part of the job description." Dairon gives her a quick once-over and then swings the door open a little wider. "You looking for someone to talk to?"--written for day three of beau week: modern au/dairon





	young blood, stand and deliver

**Author's Note:**

> title (once more) from "raise hell" by dorothy

"An R.A. is basically like a glorified counselor, right?"

"I don't know how glorified it is, but, sure, counseling is generally part of the job description." Dairon gives her a quick once-over and then swings the door open a little wider. "You looking for someone to talk to?"

Beau shifts a little where she's standing, looking away from Dairon back towards the steadier ground of her own dorm. Because—okay, yeah, she _does_ , but not in whatever way Dairon is getting at, like Beau is some homesick freshman going all teary-eyed because it's been two months without a hug from mom or whatever. Not like she came here looking for a pat on the back or a handful of recycled platitudes— _you can do it, you do belong here, the first few weeks are hard for everyone_ —or a cup of Lipton cooked up on an electric water heater. Fuck that. And besides, not that she _is_ looking for that flavor of sympathy, but even if she was, she's not convinced Dairon is the person she'd turn to. Sure, she'd done a bang-up job leading Two Truths and a Lie during orientation week, but she seems a little too full of hard-edged practicality to dish out any of that feel-good bullshit.

Still—it's not like Beau had wandered down the hall just for kicks. She does want— _need_ , really— to talk to somebody, and right now her options are a short list with Dairon's name at the top, so. Yeah. Here she is.

Dairon looks her over like she has a sense what Beau is thinking, which a) is obviously crazy, but also b) is it, though? She and Jester both agree that Dairon definitely has that vibe to her, like maybe she's twenty-one or twenty-one hundred. Sure, she lives in a dorm _now_ , but there's easily a thirty-percent chance that she also lived through the Crusades. _After you've defended your town from European invaders,_ Jester had said in her best Dairon-voice, shoulders straight back and one eyebrow cocked, _it's a little difficult to fear something as trivial as finals._

More importantly, she's easily more mature than anyone else Beau knows. Which—between Fjord getting together with his hot-yet-terrifying history professor and Caleb and Molly's two hour-long debate over whether or not cats can vape—isn't exactly a high bar, but. Still.

"Do you want to come inside?" Dairon asks after Beau's made no move forward. "We don't have to talk if you don't want to, but we are wasting all the hard work of my space heater."

Beau pauses, still half torn. "You sure? I'm not—I don't know—interrupting or anything?"

"Hume will live if I leave him alone for a while. He won't, actually, he's been dead for centuries, but I could still use a break." She turns away without waiting to see if Beau follows, leaving the door open behind her. After a beat, Beau caves and heads inside.

Dairon's dorm is a little smaller than her own but has the benefit of being a single, one set of pine-colored furniture instead of the twin pieces split between her and Jester. Beau hadn't given much thought to what it might look like, but it mostly fits the idea she has of Dairon: a simple white-and-navy comforter tucked in with Boy Scout-neat edges, an alphabetized collection of political theory texts on the shelf above her desk, a sticker for the Cobalt Soul gym stuck to the back of her half-open laptop. But there are other touches that Beau doesn't expect, like the row of succulents along the windowsill potted in painted terra cotta, or the lesbian pride flag hung up over Dairon's bed—which is, as far as Beau can tell, the only thing on the walls at all.

"Hey, me too," she says, tilting her head towards the flag.

"Yeah?" Dairon asks, taking a seat at the desk with one leg folded under her. "Is that what you wanted to talk about?"

"Not really—or, yes? Maybe?" Fuck, this is already harder than she'd thought. "I'm not, like, trying to figure out my sexuality or anything, but—" Beau breaks off, taking a seat on the couch that seems solely intended for these sorts of conversations; it's decorated with two Target throw pillows, yellow-and-white striped like something from a hotel lobby, and Beau has a hard time picturing Dairon shopping for them herself. "I don't know. If anything, I guess it's...lesbian adjacent?"

Dairon raises an eyebrow a little, but doesn't interrupt. It's only a minor consolation that this certainly isn't the strangest conversation ever had in this room.

"Okay, it's like—you know that feeling of being a gay woman in a locker room and just being so fucking _uncomfortable_? You know that you're not staring at or trying to hit on anyone, but there's also this sense that you have to stand in the corner like you're in the fucking _Blair Witch Project_ because you don't want anyone to think you're being inappropriate? Like you have to apologize for your whole fucking existence just because you happen to be a gay woman in this space and you don't know who's going to be a homophobic asshole about it?"

"I haven't actually seen that movie, but, yes, I know what you mean."

"So what do I do if I feel like that all the time? Like I'm living in that women's locker room."

Dairon frowns a little. "Are you talking about the environment of the school? If someone did or said anything to you, I'm happy to help you file a report—"

"No, that's—I mean, sure, some asshole in a frat tank top told me how 'exotic' I looked and clearly thought that was a compliment, but it's not anything like that." Beau takes a slow breath, looking up at the ceiling where some prior R.A. had stuck a RADIO ZADASH sticker near the vent. The couch stuffing feels tired under her hands, but maybe that has more to do with how she's digging her fingertips into it. "I, uh, think I have a crush on my roommate and I don't know what to do about that."

"Oh," Dairon says, blinking a few times. "Okay. Remind me, your roommate is—"

"Jester."

"Right, okay." She's quiet for a moment, which isn't entirely reassuring. Like, Beau already knows how fucked this situation is; she doesn't want or need Dairon's silence validating that. "Okay, I think I need to go back to the analogy. So—you feel like you're doing something inappropriate just by being in the room with her? Does she know you're a lesbian? Are you worried she'd react poorly if she found out?"

"No? Yes?" God, why can't Dairon just _Inside Out_ her way into Beau's brain so she doesn't have to figure out how to explain this. "Okay, one thing at a time. Does she know I'm gay? I've never explicitly come out to her or anything, but I'm also pretty unsubtle about my crush on Jameela Jamil, so, probably? Am I worried she's secretly homophobic? Rationally, no, I don't think she's, like, cheering on Pence or anything, but—there are miles of middle ground between supporting conversion therapy and being super cool with having a lesbian roommate." She's gotten used to all of the little ways that Jester is affectionate, these absent touches on her back, Jester's head resting on her shoulder, the way she unselfconsciously takes Beau's hand when they're out together. It feels like such a fragile thing suspended between them, some piece of spun glass that wouldn't take too much distance to shatter. "And, yeah, I guess inappropriate isn't a bad way to describe it. Mostly I just feel—guilty. Like it's not fair to her that she's sharing a dorm with me."

"Are you taking advantage of the situation in any way?"

"Fuck that, of course not."

Dairon must tell that there's something she's holding back, because she raises her eyebrow a little at Beau. "But..?"

But isn't she taking advantage of Jester whenever they're together? Isn't she taking advantage just by _being_ with her? Would Jester still ask her for help with her necklace clasp if she knew that Beau's hands turned unsteady from the closeness, from the occasional, accidental brush of her thumb against the soft stretch of Jester's neck? How would she feel if she knew the funny thing it did to Beau's stomach whenever she watched Jester lean in close to the mirror to tie up her braids in a scarf or to touch up the edges of her plum-purple lipstick? She feels like she's a voyeur in her own home, damned for those stolen moments even when she spends so much of her time keeping her eyes cast down.

"Listen, Beau," Dairon says, leaning forward a little in her chair. "It's okay. _You're_ okay. Jester's not some asshole who thinks every gay girl is into her, and you're not harassing anybody just because you won't lower your eyes at all time. You don't have to sand down pieces of yourself to make anyone else more comfortable, alright? You're not doing anyone a disservice just because you exist, and that includes Jester."

"She didn't sign up to have a lesbian roommate."

"And you didn't sign up to get a crush on her. Shit happens." There's a steadiness to Dairon's tone that Beau doesn't know how to handle, feels like something too heavy and too certain to hold across her shoulders; the Earth would tremble if she were asked to play Atlas. "Look, I don't know if this is what you came here for, but I think it's something you need to hear: you don't have to feel guilty, Beau. Alright? You haven't done anything wrong."

"But I _am_ into her. She wouldn't be out of line in being uncomfortable with that."

Dairon pauses, leans back a little. "No, that's true. So what do you want to do about that? Would you like to switch roommates?"

Beau hadn't even considered that, immediately realizes she doesn't want to. "No."

"Do you want to tell her how you feel?"

Which is really the million-dollar question here. Because—yeah, she does, sort of. Not just because it's the only thing that feels fair to Jester, but because there's a tiny goblin-part of her brain that wonders if, maybe, Jester might like her, too. Still, there's something safer in Jester's not-knowing—Beau avoids the choose-your-own adventure path where Jester decides she wants nothing to do with her.

"I don't know," she finally settles on. "I think I do, but—maybe not yet."

"That's fair."

Glancing over at the clock, Beau sees that she's already stayed longer than she intended to. "I probably should get going, but—thank you, for this."

"Are you feeling better?"

"I am, yeah." It surprises her how little the words feel like a lie.

Dairon nods. "Good, I'm glad. And if you ever need anything else, I hope you know you can come to me. I'm here for you, Beau, and that'd be true even if I wasn't your R.A."

"Yeah?" She looks away, feels a smile of her own pulling at the corners of her mouth as she gets to her feet. "That's actually pretty cool of you. And, hey, maybe I'll swing by the gym sometime," Beau says, nodding at Dairon's laptop. "I've definitely had more than a few days when I really could've used a punching bag.

She laughs. "You'll fit right in."

In the time that Beau was gone, Jester's already come back to the dorm, sprawled out on Beau's bottom bunk with two pieces of vanilla sheet cake on wax-paper plates, one of those Safeway-brand kinds that's forty-percent frosting.

" _There_ you are," Jester says as Beau walks in, sitting up. "I was about to watch the rest of _Russian Doll_ without you. Well, not really, but I was _thinking_ about it."

"Good thing I'm back, then," Beau says, leaning against the bedpost. "Is one of those for me?"

Jester nods, shifting sideways on the bed and patting the empty stretch of coverlet to her right; Beau takes the seat, legs folded on top of the blanket. As soon as she does, Jester passes her one of the plates and scoots closer, shoulders bumping as she pulls up Netflix.

"Hey, Jess?" Beau says, scooping up some of the frosting.

"Mhm?"

"Thank you."

Jester glances over, looking a little confused, a little curious. "What for, Beau?"

For not having been afraid her, not having looked at her like she was made up of too many rough edges. For having decided from day one that they would be friends, and for having given Beau some small island of comfort here. "This is some damn good cake."

Jester smiles bright as neon. She leans over and presses her lips to Beau's cheek; even at a distance, she can smell the sugar on Jester's breath, her heart suddenly beating very loud in her ears.

"Of course, Beau. Anytime."


End file.
